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April is officially underway, which means we’re almost halfway through 2019. This year has already has seen some major titles arrive across PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch, and while this month is fairly quiet compared to March, there are still some big-name games on the way to each platform.

Headlining April’s releases are Mortal Kombat 11 and Days Gone, Sony’s long in-development zombie game for PS4. While those may have garnered the most attention, they are hardly the only titles worth looking out for. This month also sees a number of older games arrive on new platforms. Two of 2017’s most acclaimed titles, Cuphead and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, hit Switch in April, while Square Enix is bringing Final Fantasy X/X-2 Remaster and Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age to Switch and Xbox One.

There are plenty of other titles on the way this month as well, from the anticipate Super Meat Boy sequel, Super Meat Boy Forever, to SteamWorld Quest: The Hand of Gilgamech and BoxBoy + BoxGirl, the first Switch installment in HAL’s clever puzzle-platforming series. You can see all of the biggest game releases for April 2019 below. For a wider look at what’s ahead this year, be sure to check out our complete list of game release dates in 2019.

Nintendo Labo VR Kit (Switch) — April 12

Nintendo’s marquee Switch release this month is the Nintendo Labo VR Kit, the fourth set in the company’s growing line of DIY games/peripherals. The full package comes with a game card and an assortment of crafting materials used to assemble six unique Toy-Con accessories, which when combined with the Switch hardware will allow you to play a handful of minigames–and even some Switch titles like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild–in basic VR. The full Labo VR Kit costs $80, while the starter set runs for $40.

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Cuphead (Switch) — April 18

More than a year after it first released on Xbox One and PC, Microsoft and developer Studio MDHR are bringing their critically acclaimed platformer, Cuphead, to Nintendo Switch on April 18. Not only will the Switch version will feature the same challenging run-and-gun gameplay and hand-drawn 1930s-style visuals that made it such a beloved hit on other platforms, it’ll also receive Xbox Live support through a post-launch update, allowing you to unlock Achievements for the game even when you play on Nintendo’s hybrid console.

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Mortal Kombat 11 (PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC) — April 23

The latest entry in NetherRealm’s long-running fighting game series, Mortal Kombat 11, arrives on PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch later this month. Picking up after the events of 2015’s Mortal Kombat X, the game tells a time-bending story in which past and present versions of characters come face to face and must stop the machinations of Kronika, the Keeper of Time. It also boasts an impressive roster of fighters, from returning favorites like Scropion and Liu Kang to entirely new characters like the Elder God Cetrion.

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Days Gone (PS4) — April 26

It’s been a long time coming, but Sony’s PS4-exclusive zombie survival game Days Gone is finally set to release on April 26. The game puts players in the role of Deacon St. John, a bounty hunter who travels around the open-world, post-apocalyptic remains of the Pacific Northwest on his motorcycle, battling zombie-like creatures known as Freakers and coming to the aid other survivors.

Further reading:

Full April Release Schedule

Investigations, interrogations, serial murders, and a whole lot of plot twists–it’s all here in the upcoming puzzle-adventure mystery AI: The Somnium Files, the latest game from Zero Escape director Kotaro Uchikoshi and the team at Spike Chunsoft. It’s not much of a surprise that AI borders on bizarre and grotesque, as you can see in the latest trailer (see below). Having seen it in action briefly and getting a taste of its early gameplay, it appears to be in the same vein of Uchikoshi’s past work, but with it’s own unique flair.

Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors (colloquially known as 999), Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward, and Zero Time Dilemma formed a trilogy of mind-bending narrative experiences built around puzzle-solving. But Uchikoshi has traded the twisted escape room premises of those games for putting you in the shoes of a detective. With Uchikoshi and assistant director Akira Okada on-hand during my demo time, I asked about their approach in creating something new and thematically different that still had the spirit of past games.

“What I had in mind is that I wanted to make this for adventure game fans around the world, including investigations into a separate dream world,” Uchikoshi said. “I can’t go into details right now, but as an adventure game, you want to expand as much as you can so everybody can have fun. Everyone knows what an adventure game is like, but in 2019 I wanted to make that a little more fresh.”

People who haven’t played adventure games: first go home, try to drink a gallon of tequila, make sure your mind’s loose, and then just accept what it is. Then you’ll get used to the game, and it’ll just suck you in. – Kotaro Uchikoshi

There is a thematic twist that’s new for Uchikoshi, which shares a few similarities to aspects of Quantic Dream’s Heavy Rain or even Suda51’s The Silver Case. Okada even points to games such as The Walking Dead and Life Is Strange as influences. However, a lot of AI: The Somnium Files’ DNA can be traced to Zero Escape, since you’re still trying to investigate and unravel mysteries from a first-person perspective, at least when you’re taking the role of the main protagonist Kaname Date.

As Date, you talk to folks around the crime scene and examine your surroundings, but that’s only half the work. His cybernetic eyeball named Aiba (pun intended)–and partner in crime-solving–can enter an alternate dimension to unlock deeper secrets, new pieces of evidence, and more abstract thoughts of the specific characters involved. It almost reminds me of Persona 5’s Phantom Thieves entering the Metaverse to uncover the true nature of others, and ultimately affect those people’s reality. Aiba gets a moe anthropomorphization in these sequences, where you roam around a deformed version of the crime scene from a third-person point of view. The catch is you have a limited amount of time to investigate this dimension, and interacting with story-critical objects will consume time depending on the action you take. Thus, AI offers branching narrative paths dictated by your decisions and actions.

I got a sense of pressure in these moments and asked Okada how they approach balancing difficulty for a narrative-based adventure game.

“In general you would play more and more of the game, doing puzzles, and that was the challenging part, for me as well, playing a ton of puzzles and trying to balance the levels together,” Okada responded. But in general, playing the game multiple times will help the player out, help understand the puzzles.” It seems that players have to live with the result they earn in AI, at least for chunks of the game, and that’s how branching paths are constructed–something like 428: Shibuya Scramble came to mind. Okada continued, “We think a lot about accessibility, options for difficulty, options for games that aren’t entirely story based. So I think that’s still a big concern.”

A heavy narrative is the driving force in AI: The Somnium Files, and in that department, there’s been a bit of an unconventional lead-up to this game. If you haven’t been following, I’ll catch you up a bit. Uchikoshi first revealed AI as his next game at Anime Expo 2018, and held a panel covering some of the design philosophies. Promotion for the game then pivoted to shining the spotlight on one important character: Iris Sagan, an in-universe influencer and pop star under the stage name A-set. She spilled into the real world with songs, music videos, and interactions with fans through Twitter and YouTube–hell, I even ‘interviewed’ her and Uchikoshi at the start of all this. We learned a lot about her, like her favorite Hatsune Miku song and opinion on the best boy/best girl of the Danganronpa series.

However, it was pretty clear where things were going once Iris’ own YouTube videos were corrupted with creepy subliminal messages. A few horrifying videos went up a couple weeks ago, one of which was just camera footage of her apartment left running without a trace of her presence, and another showing a bi-pedal polar bear about to chop her in half with a saw blade. Since then, her channel has had two hilarious video in promotion of the game featuring her commentary on Uchikoshi himself and different parts of the game’s lore. In the game itself, we’ve seen her crying for Date’s help and on the verge of getting killed Saw-style in the latest trailer. It’s wild.

There’s been a heavy focus on Iris, but what about the other characters? We don’t know much about Date yet, other than the fact that he works for the Tokyo MPD and lost his memory six years prior. So I asked about how they approach creating characters and what we could expect from the game’s cast, to which Uchikoshi responded, “First of all, the care and balance of personalities is very important to me. So the character types don’t double up. If we have a sad person, we don’t want another sad person. And the game is based on a murder mystery, so we kind of want you to try to figure out who these characters are, while everyone’s working together.”

One of A-set’s new videos features a cheery Uchikoshi-san.

Admittedly, I couldn’t get much out the rest of the game’s cast, but character design appears to be a major appeal. Having employed the talent of Yusuke Kozaki (known for his work on No More Heroes, Fire Emblem, and Pokemon Go), it’s an important aspect. Okada agreed, saying, “I think since the illustration and art is visually attractive, during the whole game, while you’re playing, it’ll draw you to the story also. Looking at the characters, that’s how I started getting hooked. The visuals would get you first, then the mysteries will get you to keep on playing.”

AI seems to be really going for it with its outlandish pretense, and I wouldn’t expect anything less from Uchikoshi. I think his continued response to my questions about why people should keep an eye on his new game says a lot. “So, for the people who already played adventure games, I understand they’ll really like this one,” Uchikoshi said. “But people who haven’t played adventure games: first go home, try to drink a gallon of tequila, make sure your mind’s loose, and then just accept what it is. Then you’ll get used to the game, and it’ll just suck you in.” Please don’t try this at home, or anywhere, really.

You can take up the role of detective and adorable eyeball sidekick in AI: The Somnium Files when it launches for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC on July 25, 2019.

Editor’s Note: Translations for the interview portions with Kotaro Uchikoshi and Akira Okada were done by Spike Chunsoft.

Avengers: Endgame releases later this month, marking the end of the Infinity Saga. We don’t know a ton about what the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will entail, but Marvel has enlisted more comedic talent to join its ranks. Comedian and Oscar nominee Kumail Nanjiani (Silicon Valley, The Lego Ninjago Movie) will star in the forthcoming The Eternals.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Nanjiani will star alongside Angelina Jolie (Maleficent, Unbroken) in The Eternals. Jolie, as stated in the report, is said to play a character named Sersi, an outgoing Eternal who is willing to brush shoulders with humans. Nanjiani’s role, however, has yet to be revealed. The project is led by director Chloe Zhao (Songs My Brothers Taught Me, The Rider), with writing by cousins Matthew K. (Zombie High School, The Agency Blues) and Ryan Firpo (Bet Raise Fold, Baalin: Control).

The first Eternals comic was published in 1976 by late writer and artist, Jack Kirby (1917-1994). The Eternals, an offshoot of life created by an alien race called the Celestials, were established to protect the Earth from the Deviants, a dastardly project by the Celestials gone awry. 30 years later, eclectic writer Neil Gaiman gave the superheroes a facelift in 2006, bringing them and their universe to the modern era with a seven-issue miniseries that concluded in 2007.

Nanjiani, who was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the 90th Academy Awards for the romantic comedy The Big Sick–he co-wrote the movie with his wife, Emily V. Gordon–has a busy year ahead of him. Along with appearing in Men In Black: International (June 14) and Stuber (July 12), he’s starring in two other films currently in post-production, The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle and The Lovebirds, both slated for a 2020 release. A new trailer for Stuber, in which he stars alongside Dave Bautista, was just released.

Along with Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and Black Widow‘s standalone movie, The Eternals is one of several movies we know are coming to the MCU. However, the only one with a specific name and date is Spider-Man: Far From Home, which releases in July. For more, check out our roundup of what we know about Marvel’s Phase 4.

Blizzard has started teasing its next limited-time event for Overwatch, called Storm Rising. On April 7, a clipping from the fictional newspaper Havana Sun was posted on Overwatch’s main website. Blizzard followed up the next day with a tweet detailing classified Overwatch information–both revealing the story for Storm Rising and possibly teasing a new playable hero called Sojourn. Said tweet can be seen below.

The Havana Sun newspaper clipping is written in Spanish, with an English translation provided beneath it. The article details the unknown corporate takeover of Don Rumbotico, a popular distillery with a “controversial” history. Apparently, after Don Rumbotico founder Clara and Basillo Diaz refused to sell the Havana distillery to an “anonymous financial group,” they were met with repeated hardships and eventually had to sell their company regardless. The article goes on to list that Don Rumbotico isn’t the only Havana icon to be bought by this mysterious group, and ends with a weather warning for an approaching storm. What this all means for Overwatch isn’t completely clear until the follow-up tweet is also taken into account.

The tweet contains a decrypted audio recording for an archived mission briefing in the Overwatch team’s database. The message is to Commander Morrison, putting the date of the recording prior to the fall of Overwatch and Morrison’s transformation into Soldier: 76. The briefing admonishes Morrison for trying to track down Doomfist, as going after the villain’s accountant Maximilien and connecting them back to Doomfist would prove a much easier task. The voice then states Tracer will lead the team tasked with tracking Maximilien down, and she’ll be joined by Winston, Genji, and Mercy. The briefing ends with the voice identifying themselves as Sojourn.

The trailer then ends with the tease that Storm Rising will occur April 16 through May 6. Though Maximilien has never appeared in-game, he’s been a part of Overwatch’s lore for a while as a council member in Doomfist’s villainous group, Talon. Most likely, he’s the one behind the financial group buying up the local icons in Havana, and Tracer and her team will attempt to investigate his holdings under the cover of the fierce storm that’s approaching the city. This story will presumably be told over the course of a four-person co-op PvE mission. Blizzard has not confirmed this, but this style of storytelling has been used in Overwatch’s previous April limited-time events, Retribution and Uprising, before.

What’s most compelling is the introduction of Sojourn, as she’s never been mentioned before but she sounds like someone who possesses great authority either within or over Overwatch. Whether she’s an upcoming playable hero remains to be seen, but it sounds like she’ll play a substantial role in the upcoming limited-time event.

Overwatch is available for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.